Kervan Saray Beach

Slowing down, calming down and blowing bubbles.....

After the totally hectic dash to get to the plane, fly through what remained of the night and get to Kenya, to hop on another plane quick smart to head to Dar (having completely forgotten there are direct flights to Zanzibar, which would have saved $150 or so in flights) then a taxi transfer to Terminal 1 for a ZanAir flight to Chake-Chake in Pemba, I had enough time to breathe, grab a delicious bowl of beans and rice at the little cafe down the road and find out that I had enough time for a taxi ride to the local market for a hair-cut and beard trim.
Always an interesting experience, getting ones haircut in a local barber in Africa, the guys are never quite sure how to attack muzungu (European) hair, so I usually end up doing the first swipe with the clippers and let them take the rest off!
So back to the waiting room, where I meet and started chatting to 3 Americans, mid-twenty types, after the cultural experience in Africa, they were coing to do 4 weeks volunteer work in Tanzania, so they had spent a month in Europe (Paris mostly) living in an apartment to explore the sites, they had arrived first time to Africa that morning and were starting by becoming "acclimatized" by staying at the 5 star lodge which is Fundu Lagoon, at $500+ a night each, reckon for the 4 days they were going to be there before a week safari they would each spend more than the average African family does in a year for 1 night. He was a teacher and the reasoning behind doing the trip this way was "wanting to leave Africa at the end of the volunteer period straight from the poverty of the village, so I can understand better life in America".... er, hang on, I thought you were coming to help the Africans, seems not all is as it seems.
I love the fligth across the "Pemba gap" to the island, looking down at the ocean and the colours below the surface, passing over the coast on approach to land, seeing life from above before touching down in the Cessna Caravan on the bumpy tarmac of Chake-Chake airport.
The taxi wasn't there waiting, but fortunately everyone knows Mohamed (alias Eddie) so I had in number in moments and he was on his way, he thought I was on the next flight. I said cheers to the Americans as the Fundu minibus picked them up to whisk them to their speedboat transfer to the lodge...
Eddie arrived and off we went towards the north of the island, Wete and Kervan Saray, arriving about an hour later after the always inspiring Ngezi Forest, met Mac, camp manager in residence and then made for the shower.
I was exhausted, had been a long trip and couple of days, did have enough energy to sit on the beach with a cold Tusker watching the sun sink red below the sea, stunning
Diving the next morning then... the pictures can tell that story.
I spent a fantastic 5 days there and was so good to be back in the water again.
Thanks to all the folk there, especially Torpil Brown Eyes for keeping Mac the manager in line and keeping him interested in the "how to lessons" on Land Rover maintenance and I hope to be back before to long to catch up properly with the Raf man and Cisca.
I would throughly recommend Kervan to anyone, wanting to either dive or just experience a part of Africa as yet too unspoilt by tourism, Pemba is oft quoted as "probably never having more than 100 tourists on the whole island at any one time" which when compared to the well known Zanzibar, makes Pemba a stunning off the beaten track experience.

Kervan (well Cisca) can be contacted at resort(@)kayakpemba.com, remove the brackets... or visit www.swahilidivers.com a beautiful website

As always met some fascinating folk and topped it all off with a night on Zanzibar meeting up with a long unseen cousin who now lives in Oz, who for the price of a packet of soup had won a very shiny 4x4 jeep as a prize, sold it and used the money for an eight week African adventure, which included the timing actually working out for once to mean we would drink beer together for a sundown on Zanzibar, followed by a unique pizza, the "chocolate banana"... was great to catch up under an African sky and meet her beau Adam.
Strange how the world works sometimes

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